This Genius Trick Uses Blotting Papers to Help Makeup Stay on Oily Eyelids

Someone on Reddit just gave us a reason to reach for blotting papersbefore putting makeup on. A user who goes by Pennypenny22 shared her out-of-order trick for keeping her oily eyelids from sabotaging her eye makeup on the MakeupAddiction subreddit, and its simplicity is blowing my mind. She blots her lids with the classic oil-control product prior to smearing on primer, and her typically oily lids stay matte all day long. Genius, right?

“I have very hooded eyes and oily lids, so the odds are stacked against me,” Pennypenny22 explained in her thread. “Yesterday, I realized that the primer I put on to stop my eyeliner from transferring was creasing itself. I did some hard thinking and came up with this.” She started off by washing her face and swiping a micellar water-soaked cotton pad over her lids. Then, she grabbed her blotting papers and pressed them all over her lids. Pennypenny22 noticed that they worked just as they would on the T-zone. The de-slicking sheets completely pick up any residual oils on lids and mattify them for the rest of the day. “If you touch your skin after, it’ll feel totally matte,” she wrote.

After blotting her lids, Pennypenny22 applied primer with a brush and proceeded with applying her eye makeup. “I worked out that putting primer onto oil doesn’t really work,” she said. “It seems to stop the oil coming through, but only if it’s [used] on relatively matte skin to begin with.” Then, she went on with her busy day, which included a 10-minute walk in drizzling weather. By the end of the day, Pennypenny22 noticed her eye makeup looked exactly as it did when she applied it.

Below, you can see what Pennypenny22’s eye makeup looked like without putting her blotting paper trick into action and after she discovered it. The difference is pretty stunning. There isn’t a crease in sight in her after picture.

Claire Barker

Like many of us, Pennypenny22 shared she usually blots her skin mid-day. “I think that because I had categorized them as face products to be kept in my handbag, it had never occurred to me that they could be used on the eyes at home.” Same.